


mi corazón

by adelaidebabe (soulless_slut)



Series: trans alec collection [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: (Kind of? I think?), Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Alec Lightwood-centric, Best Sister Award-Isabelle Lightwood, Character Study, Gen, Isabelle Lightwood-centric, One-Sided Alec Lightwood/Jace Wayland, Protective Isabelle Lightwood, Protective Jace Wayland, Supportive Isabelle Lightwood, Supportive Jace Wayland, Trans Alec Lightwood, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 01:56:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7294837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulless_slut/pseuds/adelaidebabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Isabelle begins calling Alec ‘big brother’ when she’s one and half. It had come out garbled and like mush, but three year old Alec’s smile had brightened her dark nursery. It’s one of her earliest and clearest memories of her brother.”<br/>-<br/>aka: a prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/7284130">my ashtray heart</a> told through Isabelle about her big brother</p>
            </blockquote>





	mi corazón

**Author's Note:**

> title from ashtray heart by placebo. so like the summary says, this is (accidentally) a prequel to the first fic in this series, but i wanna say you can read them in any order you like. again, i finished this surprisingly quickly. it's still alec centric, but it's told from isabelle so it's also very isabelle centric. it's before any events in [my ashtray heart](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7284130). not beta read, all mistakes are mine. disclaimer: i'm cis (but so is isabelle so i feel a little safer telling this part of the story).

Isabelle has a habit of sneaking into Alec’s room when she knows for a fact he won’t catch her, and snooping around.

It’s her responsibility as his sister.

(Even though she doesn’t sneak into Jace’s room or Max’s room.)

She hadn’t always done it; one day, Alec was out with their parents and even moodier than usual. All of her snooping comes from a place of worry and love.

At first.

But then she started learning stuff about him that she knows in a million years he would never tell her.

Like his list. His list on his mirror.

The first few times she reads said list, she doesn’t understand what the words mean or why some are crossed out only to be rewritten. It’s not until one day the list says, SCARED, that Isabelle thinks she’s beginning to understand. All of the words are descriptor words, defining words.

Her brother is trying to define himself.

It makes her incredibly sad.

—

What is he afraid of?

—

One day, Isabelle catches him looking at Jace, his eyes distant. It isn’t obvious but she knows what his face, despite its blankness, means.

Longing.

And his fear makes sense.

She’s twelve, Jace is twelve, and Alec’s fourteenth birthday is in a few days.

It’s a weird feeling in her heart, knowing what her brother’s afraid of, knowing he’s afraid.

—

Isabelle begins calling Alec “big brother” when she’s one and half. It had come out garbled and like mush, but three year old Alec’s smile had brightened her dark nursery. It’s one of her earliest and clearest memories of her brother.

He had been teaching her to call him “brother” behind their parents’ back. He hadn’t chosen a new name yet, mostly because he didn’t know that he could.

When Isabelle is four, he’s teaching her words that he knows, the two of them stumbling their way through kid-friendly stories of Alexander the Great.

—

When Alec is nine, he begs her to go through baby name books with him. Alexander is the first name Isabelle comes across.

She watches as Alec paces, repeating, “Alexander, Alexander,” to himself under his breath as she lays on her stomach on the floor, baby name book in front of her. She reads the meaning out loud:

“Defender of men.”

When Alec doesn’t seem to hear her, she keeps talking. “I like it. Because you’re a man and now you’re defending yourself.”

Alec stops pacing. Turns around. His eyes are bright and his smile is weak but it’s true. Isabelle smiles back, blinding.

—

Knowing how much the title “big brother” means to Alec, she tries to say it as often as possible without it getting too obnoxious or obvious as to what she’s doing.

—

“I know you mean well, big brother.”

—

“It’s time for dinner, big brother.”

—

“Be nice, big brother.”

—

If she notices that her parents twitch every time she says it. Well.

—

Rationally, Isabelle knows her parents were more supportive than a lot of mundane parents are. But that doesn’t mean Alec owes them anything or that they’re free from criticism.

Yes. They eventually listened to Alec after Isabelle helped him bring it up for the hundredth time.

Yes. They complied to change Alec’s name and call him by his new name.

They payed for everything, they didn’t stop him.

(Not for a lack of trying in the beginning.)

But they weren’t happy about it. Not even a pretend, fake happy. Isabelle thinks they only finally went through with it all because they wanted Alec to get off their backs.

Thinks that’s why they tend to spend most of their time at Idris.

—

Alec is just starting hormone therapy and using his new name when Jace comes to live with them. Isabelle is ten like him, but she knows that he’s already a little older with what he went through.

Jace never questions anything about Alec. And when some awful Shadowhunter child who knows says something about it in a year’s time to Jace, he punches the kid. Says, “Not that that is any of your business, but I know.”

Isabelle’s not sure how he knows, until she eavesdrops on Jace and Alec that night.

Alec says, “You didn’t have to punch him.”

“It wasn’t his business.”

A pause.

“Yeah, okay, but you didn’t have to punch him.”

Jace scoffs. “He was being rude. What else was I supposed to do?”

Isabelle waits for Alec to speak, but he doesn’t. She hears sounds that sound like movement on a bed. “Alec,” Jace says. “We’re brothers. I told you then and I’m telling you now. Someone trying to hurt you is trying to hurt me, and we both know I don’t let people do that.”

A pause. Jace’s voice is quieter.

“We’re brothers.”

—

Isabelle is most thankful for Jace Wayland.

—

WEAK.

—

She has an urge to cross that one out herself, but she doesn’t want Alec to know that she knows about his list. Because then he’ll move it or stop writing a list altogether.

SCARED has been crossed out, but she sees a place where it was rewritten and erased. Which is different. He doesn’t erase words.

—

She’s thankful for Max, too, because he never knew any different. Alec has always been his older brother.

She thinks Max’s birth is why Alec had the sudden urge to change his name.

—

Isabelle wishes Alec was easier on himself. She knows he thinks there’s something just fundamentally wrong with him because he’s gay and trans, and their parents have made it clear from the beginning that they don’t exactly approve.

(They don’t really approve of anything Alec does, it seems.)

She tries to convey to him that he’s not wrong, and that there’s nothing wrong with him. She knows he doesn’t listen. Can’t listen. Can’t accept what she tells him. She knows Jace tries too, sometimes, when he’s feeling benevolent.

She knows their parents really messed up.

(Surprisingly, though, not with Jace.)

But she just wishes that Alec wouldn’t let their words be the end all be all.

—

He doesn’t know that Isabelle knows. That he’s in love with Jace and that he’s gay.

It’s obvious. The way he pretends to not know what her looks mean, or when she says, “It’s okay, big brother,” or when she catches him looking at Jace for too long and he turns red, trying to play it off as something else. He thinks he succeeds.

She can read her brother like a book. Feels like she always could.

He likes to pretend he’s unreadable and all Isabelle wants is for him to be happy. So despite her looks and her verbal comfort, she doesn’t do much else.

—

She’s worried that some day she will say something and then sneak into his room later, and find.

And find SCARED written down again. Or TRANSPARENT. Or WEAK traced over—because she checked recently and that word is still there.

She feels like she’s failing as a sister. Doesn’t know how to fix it.

—

It happens.

Usually, Isabelle and her brothers—minus Max, of course—aren’t enlisted to fight demons. The three of them are still a little on the young side, but Alec’s in a bad mood again and has something to prove. They’re approved to go.

Most of it’s a blur until Alec screams. Everything snaps back into such startling clarity for Isabelle when his voice registers in her head. She hears Jace yell, “Alec!” but the demon she’s engaged with isn’t allowing her to divert her attention so she doesn’t know what’s happening.

She feels like too much time has passed when she finally kills the demon, but tries not to think about that too much. She yells, “Alec?” unsure where he is or where Jace is. She spots them a bit away, partially hidden in some bushes. Well, she sees the top of Jace’s head and Alec’s feet. She runs over to them and see that Jace already has his stele out, tracing runes into Alec’s skin.

Isabelle collapses to her knees.

—

They aren’t allowed to go out for a while following Alec’s injury.

She doesn’t say it, but Isabelle thinks he was distracted and that’s why the demon got the upperhand.

That’s usually the only reason Alec ever loses.

—

Alec’s on forced bedrest.

So, naturally, Isabelle enters his room without knocking, fully able to force him to either talk to her or listen to her talk.

He groans when he sees her, closing his eyes. “Can’t I suffer in peace?”

She laughs, and sits in the chair near his bed. She doesn’t say anything for a bit. Stares at her brother. Her chest feels tight. She starts thinking about his scream again, hearing it over and over. She could have lost him. Could have lost her big brother without knowing what was bothering him so much he was distracted in the first place.

“Izzy.”

Her mind clears and she looks over at him.

His face is sad. “I’m alright,” he says.

She nods. Says, “I know,” but the original lightheartedness she entered the room with doesn’t return.

—

The parabatai bond is a tricky one. Because Isabelle knows she would have felt completely destroyed had Alec died, but she also knows that Jace would have felt Alec die. She doesn’t know if he would be able to recover from that.

She probably wouldn’t have. She doesn’t have a parabatai, doesn’t know personally how it feels, but everything she’s read. It all states how ingrained and deep the bond is.

There’s a chance that how she feels about almost losing her brother is only half of what Jace is feeling.

He hasn’t been to visit Alec.

—

She hopes Alec knows it isn’t personal.

She hasn’t really seen Jace, either, but she knows it’s not personal.

—

It’s just Jace.

—

On the second to last day of Alec’s bedrest, Isabelle comes into his room again. Fully prepared to interrogate him about what exactly had happened.

She doesn’t have to threaten much before Alec is holding up his hand, saying, “Okay.”

He looks tired and sad again, and she wonders if it’s because Jace still hasn’t been by.

She settles in the chair again, trying not to think about the last time this happened.

—

It was a bad phone call with their parents.

—

Sometimes.

Sometimes Isabelle hates them.

—

Sometimes she wishes she meant that.

—

For some reason, Alec begins confiding in her more again.

Not about Jace, though.

Isabelle thinks he’s trying to ignore those feelings as best he can.

—

Just as quickly as things took a downward swing, they take an upward one.

Alec’s off bedrest and is also no longer looking sickly after standing for too long. Jace hangs around them again. Doesn’t act any different, as if he hadn’t avoided the two of them for a few weeks.

While Alec won’t talk to her about his feelings for Jace, he does talk to her about that.

About Jace not visiting him, about Jace avoiding him, about Jace acting as if it hadn’t happened. About how he knows, rationally, part of it’s because his own father’s death, and part is the parabatai bond. “But,” Alec says, hesitating. “But it still…” He hesitates again, obvious trying to think of the word. He finally settles on, “Bothers me.”

Isabelle smiles gently. Says, “You mean it still hurts.”

Alec looks at her for a long while, mouth slightly parted, his face clouded. Finally.

“Yeah. It hurts.”

—

“It’s okay, big brother,” she says again.

—

Things settle back into routine and Isabelle thinks about Alec’s list.

With his injury, she hadn’t been able to sneak into his room for a while. She doesn’t know if he’d been able to keep adding to it anyway. If it’s still there.

She’s not sure she wants to read any new words, not yet, not after everything.

—

Isabelle sneaks into Alec’s room. When she saw him for breakfast, he was smiling. He kept suppressing it, acting like it wasn’t there, but she saw it.

She goes to his mirror, ready to read his list. Hopes it’s still there.

At first, she’s not sure what the new word is. And then she finds it. Smiles. Her hand covers her mouth, her smile continuing to widen until it hurts. Just a little.

STRONG.

**Author's Note:**

> i promise there will be more fics to come because trans alec is one of my most expansive headcanons.  
> i'm @ [dfabalec](http://dfabalec.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
